


i've never heard silence quite this loud

by theystayalive



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Season/Series 01, based off of the bts videos we got, but not with kiara i'm sorry it just does not make sense, pope i love you, they all just really miss john b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27448024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theystayalive/pseuds/theystayalive
Summary: John B is gone, JJ is hardly ever around, Pope always is. And none of those things feel right.
Relationships: JJ & Kiara (Outer Banks), JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), Kiara & Pope (Outer Banks)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 48





	i've never heard silence quite this loud

The truck’s ancient breaks squealed disconcertingly as it slowed to a stop next to the curb. Kiara turned to face JJ from the passenger seat and smiled, “Thanks for coming with me today.” 

JJ reached over to wrestle the rusting gear shift into park and yanked up violently on the parking brake. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “No problem”. 

Silence had never been something that was uncomfortable or awkward with them. Usually they could sit in it, fill whole nights with the stuff and leave each other with some of the best memories of their friendship. But that was before. 

Now, something had shifted, either in JJ or in all of them and it wasn’t as comforting as it had once been. 

When the change first began, JJ had just sort of become what Kie could only describe as _less_. He was quieter, smaller, emptier. That had turned into him being less present. After a few weeks, he would go days without leaving the pull out couch in the Chateau, and when he was around Pope and Kiara, he always seemed to find a way to cut out early or stay on the outskirts of conversation until he claimed he was too tired to stay and needed to “turn in early”

Now, it was hard to ignore the fact that he seemed to be having difficulty meeting her eyes as he focused a little too hard on picking at the fraying hem of his t-shirt. Or the fact that she couldn't give an exact count for how many days it had been since she had seen him last. 

The thought made guilt burn hot in her stomach.

She tried again. **_“_ **We’ve...I mean, I know we’ve all been sort of busy recently. My parents have been piling on the shifts for me at The Wreck, which, I know is just their way of keeping me in their direct line of sight as much as possible without saying it. And when Pope’s not running groceries for his dad he’s...studying? I guess? That’s what he says, anyway. School doesn’t start for another week so I’m not entirely sure what he’s cramming for, but even I’ve hardly had time to see him”.

JJ’s lack of response propelled her to keep talking, painfully aware of the fact that she had started to ramble. She didn’t want to get out of the car and, somehow, it felt like that’s exactly what she would have to do if she stopped talking. “Oh, I meant to tell you,” she continued, speaking faster than before, “The other night he was trying to make a Community reference and absolutely butchered it, so, I told him that means we’ll have to start from the beginning and binge it all again, since it’s been so long. I think last time we only got through the Law and Order spoof.” Kie smiled, remembering the way Pope and JJ had quoted all of Troy and Abed’s lines from that episode for a full week afterwards. At least until Heyward had threatened to throw them both off the side of the delivery boat if they didn’t stop. 

Her heart did a little somersault as he chuckled. “You don’t order ketchup, it’s a condiment,” he quoted with spot-on inflection. 

Kie laughed. “Troy, _walk it off_ ,” She mimicked, finishing the quote for him, causing him to shake his head and laugh harder. This glimmer of the old JJ was what gave her enough courage to turn to him and ask. “So, would you want to join when we do?”

The smile fell away. “I uh.” He looked back down to his shirt and began working on a new string, “Maybe. School is starting soon so… and I’ll probably have to start working because of the restitution stuff so… all of our schedules… I’ll just have to see”.

The disappointment felt like a slap across the face. “Right. No, I understand,” she answered finally, turning her attention to trace the patterns of the cracked leather seats in order to hide her reaction, “I just,” she took in a deep breath, “I miss you, JJ”.

His reply came quietly a few, long seconds later. “Yeah,” another string snapped, “yeah, I miss you too, Kiara”.

One beat. Two. Three. When it was clear he was not going to say anything else, she again felt the overwhelming responsibility to move them forward. 

“So, what now?” She tried to make her voice sound light and conversational, but it came out sounding more robotic and strained than anything. “Are you...um, are you going to go home?”

He shifted in his seat a little, twisting the thread in and out of his fingers. “I can’t go home.”

Kie looked up at him, confused. “I thought you were staying at the Chateau.”

The unfocused and vaguely confused expression on his face told her immediately that the Chateau was exactly what he was referring to.

“But...why can’t you go back to the-”

“They’re foreclosing it.”

Kiara’s stomach bottomed out. “They’re- why would they-”

JJ gave her a half hearted shrug, “Turns out Jo-” He stopped himself. Another string snapped. “His uncle wasn’t exactly keeping up with the payments while he’s away.”

It felt like someone was squeezing her throat from the inside. The thought of anyone other than a Routledge having the power to do anything to the Chateau had never even crossed her mind. It had always been a safe haven for them, the Pogue’s hideaway that the rest of the world couldn’t touch. The Chateau was Fast and Furious marathons and hot wings on Friday nights. It was playing spoons for hours on end until someone bent one or stormed away angry. It was drinking frozen lemonade on the couch after a long day or surfing or showing up with red rimmed eyes after a fight with your parents. JJ was right. It was home.

And, in another sense, it felt like a monument to all the things they had left behind that summer: innocence, uncomplicated friendships, keggers, a time before being constantly afraid and constantly looking over shoulders...

_John B._

“They can’t.” she whispered. Blood roared in her ears.

JJ gave a humorless laugh. “I mean, why would he even bother to keep up with it right? It’s not like...it’s not like he thinks there’s anyone still there.” 

The air felt like it had been sucked out of the car. It was suffocating. She was suffocating. She asked the only question her mind could seem to grab hold of. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.” His smile did not carry to his eyes. “Think I should drop in for a tearful reunion with my old man?”

“JJ…”

“No, really, he hasn’t seen me in,” he made a show of looking at an imaginary watch on his wrist, “what, a month now? Maybe let him know I’m alive, let him pretend that he actually cares if I-”

Before she knew what she was doing, Kiara had reached a shaking hand out and laid it where his shoulder met his neck. Almost as if out of reflex, he tried to pull away from her, shaking his head forcefully.

“I’m okay, Kie seriously it's not-”

“No, you’re not.” Her hand tightened on his shoulder, steady and sure. She didn’t want him to pull away. Deep down, she knew it was not just because he needed the reassurance, but because she did too. She needed to know that he was still here and that he was not so far away she could not pull him back.

JJ was silent, but his breaths were shaky and deep, the way they always did when he was trying to stop himself from crying.

“You don’t have to be okay JJ.” His eyes found hers. They were the same ones that had looked down at her from the hot tub, the night she found out about his father and her heart tightened painfully in her chest. “And you know that you don’t have to hide from me.”

As they looked at each other, it felt like something that had been pulling JJ away from her these last few weeks broke. This time, when silence settled back over them, it felt like standing outside moments before a lightning storm. JJ’s eyes roamed her face, searching. Her breath hitched as she watched them drop to her lips. 

“Kiara...I-”

A sharp tap on the window made Kie jump so violently her head collided with the roof of the truck. Pope stood on the other side of the glass. His mouth hanging open slightly and his brows knit together in an expression she couldn't quite read - or wasn’t sure she wanted to. She blinked back at him as she regained her bearings, rubbing the top of her head and cursing her hands for trembling as she opened the door of the truck to slide out. 

“Hey, Pope!” Her voice was a little too high pitched. “Are you ready to go?”

For a moment, he did not answer. His eyes just flicked back and forth between the two of them. Then, slowly, he returned the smile. She wondered if it was as forced as it looked and tried to ignore the warm sensation of guilt beginning to bubble back up inside of her.

“Hey.” He stooped down to see JJ through the window. “Thanks for dropping her off, man.”

JJ gave something that looked like a mix between a nod and a shrug. “Don’t mention it.”

“You can always come have dinner with us if you want.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. For just a split second, Pope’s eyes snapped up to look at her. But, he recovered and looked back into the drivers side. 

“Yeah, come on. It’s been a while since we’ve all been to the Wreck together.”

With the word _together_ JJ’s face slid back into the same empty, emotionless expression he’d had when Kiara had mentioned returning home. He looked lost, disoriented, and she knew exactly what he was thinking: they were not really _all_ together. 

His gaze drifted back to an undetermined point down the road ahead of him as his hands flexed and unflexed around the wheel, “Thanks but I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll just go ahead and…”

“Turn in?” Pope finished the sentence for him with a look that showed with no uncertainty how worn out this answer was becoming. JJ didn't look back at them as he nodded and put the car in drive. 

“See you around.”

Kie watched the truck turn back onto the road as Pope took her hand and began leading her into The Wreck. Through the back windshield, she could just make out a boy behind the wheel, his hand on his shoulder where her’s had been.

* * *

A poke to her arm broke though her thoughts as she stared up at the cloudless blue sky. “Kie?”

Kiara sat up quickly, startled, and found Pope kneeling over her. It took her all of 2 seconds to see that he was not entirely happy. “Hey,” she said, dumbly.

“I went by your house to pick you up for ice cream and you weren’t there.”

She winced. _Shit_. She must have lost track of time.

“Oh, Pope I’m sorry, I thought you were coming at 6, I forgot we changed the time this morning.”

He didn’t say anything in return, just stood and offered his hand to her which she took and hoisted herself up with. 

“But, I’m here now,” she said brightly with an apologetic grin, tossing her arms around his neck. “So, let’s go. I’ve been looking forward to ice cream all day”.

His hands found her waist and gently pushed her back. His face was stony and creased, the expression that told her he was thinking through what he was going to say next very carefully. They all used to tease him and say he made the same face when he was either at particularly complicated equations in algebra or a social situation. “Even though I didn’t bring JJ along too?”

Kie dropped her arms from his shoulders like she had touched something hot and anger shot through her spine. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” His eyes left her and wandered to the dock, suddenly very intent on looking anywhere but her face. 

“Are we really doing this again?” She demanded.

Pope shifted from foot to foot, clealy uncomfortable but maintaining his stubborn expression. “Doing what again?”

“There is nothing going on, I don’t know how many times you want me to say it.” She felt her fists clenching at her sides. His avoidance after an obvious confrontation only frustrated her more.

His shrug was infuriatingly noncommittal, “That’s not what it looked like in the car”.

“I’m not going to have this same conversation with you.” Her temper was swelling dangerously, raising the volume of her voice along with it. “I’m with you. I decided to be with you, why is that not _good_ enough for you?”

“Is it good enough for _you_?”

The question was a blow to the stomach. It knocked the wind out of her and sent her thoughts spinning out of control, colliding into each other. For a moment she stood there, breathing hard and fast, emotions coming up and subsiding too quickly for her mind to latch on to just one. Anger. Frustration. Hurt. Sadness. 

Regret. 

“I don’t have to take this,” she whispered, the edges of her words harsh and biting. “Goodbye, Pope.” 

Treacherous tears stung at the corner of her eyes as she brushed past Pope and stormed down the dock. She knew she was angry at him for picking at something that had been festering between them for weeks now. The idea that Kie would suddenly wake up one day and change her mind about whatever was going on between them had hung over Pope’s head since the day she kissed him. He couldn’t seem to let go of the fear that she would decide that she had, in fact, meant every harsh word she’d said to him in the Cameron's yard that night.

This fear showed itself in little ways like panicking a little too much when texts went unanswered, or conceding a bit too easily at the first sign of a disagreement, or being so uneasy when their conversations began to die out into quiet that he rambled until he embarrassed himself.

But, since the day he had found Kiara and JJ together in the car, that same insecurity had been rearing it’s ugly head just about every time she and Pope were together. 

It felt like they were walking on fault lines any time JJ’s name was brought up and certainly any time Kie showed even the slightest hint of distraction or uncertainty in this new...whatever it was she and Pope had been trying out.

The truth was, she had been distracted. And recently she had even been uncertain. Her mind by its own volition seemed determined at any free moment to take her back to the passenger seat of the truck, her hand on JJ’s shoulder and a million unspoken things hanging in the air. 

As she walked away from Pope now, she found herself wondering, not for the first time, what would have happened if he had never come to the window of the car. If they had just been allowed to sit in that silence that she had only ever loved when it was with JJ.

**Author's Note:**

> based off of the BTS crumbs we got: the video of JJ and Kie in the truck together and the video of Pope and Kie arguing on the dock.
> 
> huge thanks to Lara, Jordan, and Annie for beta reading as well as putting up with my ramblings as i tried to throw this together.
> 
> (yes my last two works have been titled with taylor lyrics but lets not talk about it)


End file.
